Freelancers, consultants and other business owners with no employees are finding that Obamacare's promises do not all apply to them.

Consider:

Most no longer qualify to stay on their current health insurance plans.

Their premium rates are going up.

In some areas, such as their ability to see doctors who aren't near them, their coverage options are more limited.

These are consequences of a new legal definition for sole proprietors that defy the goals and official assurances about the federal Affordable Care Act. The law, known as Obamacare, seeks to improve health care access for Americans.

Sole proprietors are not among the Americans whose canceled insurance plans were addressed by President Barack Obama on Thursday, when he said the plans could continue to be sold for a year. Those were plans that did not cover all benefits mandated under the new law.

Rather, sole proprietors can't stay in their current plans because they are no longer allowed to pool together as a business group — something many joined chambers of commerce to do, in order to avoid exorbitant premium rates for individuals.

Individual premium rates, which previously could run upwards of $1,000 a month, have come down significantly with the new law and implementation of the state-run online market, NY State of Health. But they're still much higher than group rates.

Last year, sole proprietors could get group rates for high deductible plans as low as $150 a month, according to business owners, brokers and chamber officials. This year, the best rates available for plans with enough Capital Region doctors start at about $300 a month, they said.

Albany-based massage therapist Marjorie Knechtel was looking at just a slight premium rate increase, but the plan came with an annual deductible of $6,000. She chose to nearly double her premium rate instead, to keep her deductible down.

Dan Colacino, 62, a long-time insurance executive who recently launched his own consulting business, found the rates and enrollment process so daunting that he considered going into business with an associate. But the pair realized it wouldn't work because their services weren't similar.

Most two-person businesses can continue to get group rates, either through their current carriers or NY State of Health, where they may qualify for new tax credits under Obamacare.

But not if the two people in the business are married. In that case, they must buy health insurance at the higher individual rates.

The change will cause a minimum 119 percent increase in insurance premiums for J&H Troy Ltd., a consulting business run by Jim Martin and Heather Hamlin, who are married. The coverage they'll get for that money will be worse than what they have now, Hamlin said. She feels businesses like J&H are paying unduly for expenses associated with the new law.

"We're taking a hit for the cost in a lot of ways," Hamlin said.

In Columbia County, where many residents are accustomed to crossing the state line or traveling to Manhattan to see doctors, lack of out-of-network coverage is another hardship. In most of the state, insurance plans that allow consumers to see doctors who aren't in the company's preferred network are no longer available to individuals.

Chambers thought the law might decimate their membership ranks, with sole proprietors leaving once they could get affordable health insurance on their own. That hasn't turned out to be the case, chamber representatives said, because the sole proprietors need help.

"If you had asked me in September what I thought (Obamacare) was going to do to chambers, my answer was that the sole proprietors are going to leave and go onto the (online health) exchange," said Todd Shimkus, president of the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce. "What I would tell you today is that we've become essential."

Many sole proprietors aren't computer savvy, said Pat Maguire, chief operating officer at the Albany-Colonie Regional Chamber of Commerce. It can take them hours to get through the complicated online registration process through NY State of Health. Knechtel said it took her two-and-a-half hours to get through the process with a state-sponsored assistor, called a navigator, at her side.

"I don't have a cut-and-dried financial picture," Knechtel said. "I think somebody with a W-2 is going to have an easier time."

Small business owners, including sole proprietors, typically procrastinate when it comes to health insurance decisions, brokers and business representatives said. This year, several said their dread of confronting Obamacare's changes has made them delay even more.

"My prayer has been that this thing was going to get shut down for a year," James Moak, a 62-year-old Delmar building contractor, said of the Affordable Care Act.

Shimkus said he's urging sole proprietors to address this decision now. The open-enrollment period for individuals runs through March, but people must sign up by Dec. 15 for coverage beginning Jan. 1.

"The sheer volume of people that now need to be helped to select a new plan through this exchange, combined with the fact of how long it's taking people to get registered to get an option, means that by Dec. 15, we will be lucky if all of those people have made an educated decision," Shimkus said.